UTeach Students Get Best of Both Worlds

Gain Business and Teaching Experience With M2D2 Internship

Lowell High School and UTeach students learn about medical devices in a School of Nursing laboratory.

12/10/2013

By Karen Angelo

Kreg Kaminski feels lucky.

He is learning about business while teaching in an internship he landed through the UTeach Program, which prepares students to become teachers while earning degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The biology major is helping to teach an entrepreneurship course to Lowell High School students.

“By helping out with this course, I am getting an in-depth look at the processes behind both teaching and entrepreneurship,” says Kaminski.

The new entrepreneurship course – M2D2 Partnership Experience – teaches Lowell High School honors students how to develop medical device products, from identifying market needs to designing prototypes and pitching ideas to industry experts.

Along with the high school students, Kaminski and John Romano, another UTeach intern, are learning about the medical device industry, entrepreneurship, communication and teamwork skills.

“This internship has been an amazing and rewarding experience for me,” says Romano, a math major. “It is definitely giving me real-world experience on how to be a teacher and I’m also learning about the medical device industry and how to start a business.”

Kaminski wished there was a class like this when he was in high school.

He says: “As a biology major, I care about medicine, design and politics, so being part of this M2D2 class has been a dream come true. It is a class I would have loved to have taken in high school.”

Once they graduate, both students will be able to choose between working in industry or education.

M2D2 Class Builds Business Skills

During the first half of the school year, the Lowell High students are learning how to identify market needs, develop concepts, create prototypes and understand regulatory affairs and intellectual property. They will identify one or two medical device needs.

During the second half of the year, the ideas will be vetted using industry best practices learned during the fall semester. The students will build a prototype and present their medical device idea to a group of medical device experts.

The UTeach program, founded at the University of Texas Austin 15 years ago, was established to attract a wide range of STEM majors to teaching careers. The program has been introduced at 29 colleges across the country, with UMass Lowell as the only participating New England university.